"Oh, I assure you I'm sound enough," she answered, "the Churchills--I know you're a friend of his--haven't a stauncher ally than I am, and I should only be too glad to be able to contradict. But it's so difficult. I assure you I go out of my way; talk to the most outrageous people, deny the very possibility of Mr. Churchill's being in any way implicated. One knows that it's impossible, but what can one do? I have said again and again--to people like grocers' wives; even to the grocers, for that matter--that Mr. Churchill is a statesman, and that if he insists that this odious man's railway must go through, it is in the interests of the country that it should. I tell them...." She paused for a minute to take breath and then went on: "I was speaking to a man of that class only this morning, rather an intelligent man and quite nice--I was saying, 'Don't you see, my dear Mr. Tull, that it is a question of international politics. If the grand duke does not get the money for his railway, the grand duke will be turned out of his--what is it--principality? And that would be most dangerous--in the present condition of affairs over there, and besides....' The man listened very respectfully, but I could see that he was not convinced. I buckled to again...." "'And besides,' I said, 'there is the question of Greenland itself. We English must have Greenland ... sooner or later. It touches you, even. You have a son who's above--who doesn't care for life in a country town, and you want to send him abroad--with a little capital. Well, Greenland is just the place for him.' The man looked at me, and almost shook his head in my face."